Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—SEX—M.D. Fla.: Transgender officer’s bias claims over termination advance to trial, (Aug 21, 2026)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

The officer, who was the department’s first transgender employee, was fired after he was required to undergo a fitness-for-duty exam that found him unfit for duty.

Although a transgender police officer with the City of Sarasota, Florida, failed to show he was subjected to unlawful gender discrimination in violation of Title VII and state law when he was forced by the police chief to submit to a fitness-for-duty exam (FFDE), a federal court in Florida found the suspicious timing of his termination, ambiguous statements by the social worker who administered the exam, better treatment of comparators, and various instances of misgendering by coworkers were sufficient to allow a reasonable jury to infer the city terminated him due to his protected status. The court, however, granted summary judgment against his various retaliation claims as well as the police chief’s motion for summary judgment (Schanley v. City of Sarasota, No. 8:25-cv-00408-WFJ-SPF (M.D. Fla. Aug. 19, 2026)).

When the officer first began working for the SPD, he presented as female, used the pronouns “she/her,” and was going by his then-legal name, Elise. The officer received positive performance reviews and assessments, as well as commendations and promotions. However, he also had six separate internal investigations with sustained findings from various instances of misconduct between August 2021 and March 2023.

August emails. In an August 2021 email, the officer informed his supervisors that he was transgender, he was going to proceed with the female-to-male transition process, and that, going forward, he wanted to be called “Eli” and use the pronouns “he/him.” In August 2022, he emailed a captain to complain about misgendering and to request assistance in addressing it. Although the captain attempted to address the issue, the misgendering continued.

IA investigation. In April 2023, an internal affairs (IA) investigation was initiated against the officer after a random audit of his body-worn camera (BWC) footage revealed several potential policy violations related to a domestic violence call to which he had responded, including his reclassification of the incident from a “domestic battery” to a “dispute” and his statement that the victim had “no visible injuries that would indicate a physical altercation took place,” despite evidence to the contrary.

FFDE and termination. While the investigation was ongoing, the chief, after reviewing the BWC video, ordered the officer to complete an FFDE with the social worker. According to the officer, the social worker’s office was decorated with religious-themed posters. Although she told him that he “passed with flying colors,” her official report found him unfit for duty even though the two written tests he had also taken had not yet been scored. Based on the report, the HR director recommended his termination, which was approved by the deputy city manager.

FFDE claims. In his subsequent lawsuit, the officer asserted Title VII and state-law gender discrimination claims related to the required FFDE. Although he first argued that several instances of misgendering by supervisors and the chief were direct evidence of discrimination, none of the supervisors were involved in his referral for a FFDE. And while the chief ordered him to undergo the FFDE, the chief never made transphobic comments and the officer conceded that he did not believe the chief referred him to an FFDE because of his transgender status.

Nor was the officer able to establish a prima case of discrimination under the McDonnell Douglas framework. Though he pointed to three potential comparators who were subjected to IA investigations for misconduct without being subjected to an FFDE or terminated, none engaged in the same basic misconduct as did he and none shared the same disciplinary history.

His attempt to demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact at the convincing mosaic stage likewise failed because his proffered evidence related to his gender discrimination claims based on his termination. “In short,” said the court, “there is little circumstantial evidence that would allow a jury to infer intentional discrimination by the decisionmaker (the chief) when subjecting Plaintiff to the FFDE.” Accordingly, the court granted summary judgment against these claims.

Termination claims. As to his gender discrimination claim based on his termination, he argued that the social worker’s repeated misgendering of him in her report, her allegedly false statements in the report, her alleged lying to him by telling him he passed the FFDE, and her texting the captain “Gay psychologist” when referencing a doctor the officer had suggested for a second opinion were direct evidence of discrimination. Disagreeing, the court explained that there was nothing in the social worker’s report that directly declared the officer unfit because he was transgender. Nor was she the decisionmaker in his termination.

Further, said the court, the officer failed to establish a prima facie case based on circumstantial evidence. He again relied on the same three alleged comparators and the court again found they were not similarly situated as they had materially different disciplinary records, engaged in different misconduct, and/or had a different supervisor.

FFDE report. The court, however, found the officer demonstrated a mosaic of circumstantial evidence that raised triable fact issues as to his termination-based claims, including whether the social worker harbored some level of discriminatory animus toward him. In addition to the repeated misgendering throughout her report, the officer claimed the report contained numerous fabricated statements or faulty assumptions. He also claimed he told the captain, the deputy chief, and the HR director that he had given the social worker different answers and that the report contained numerous falsehoods.

The court also pointed out that the report given to the officer on April 18 was seemingly incomplete and based solely on the social worker’s subjective opinion because the written tests he had taken were not scored until April 20 and the entire report, including the test scores, was not finalized until April 25, which was one day after he was fired. Further, the officer’s expert concluded that the FFDE “did not conform to widely accepted professional standards for occupationally mandated evaluations of law enforcement officers in Florida or nationally.”

Moreover, the captain told the social worker that the officer was transgender before the FFDE began and after she completed the report, she asked him whether she should send the draft to see if any revisions were needed, since she knew “this one is sensitive.” And when she learned the officer was seeking a second opinion from another licensed psychologist, she texted the captain “Ugh… Gay psychologist.” While the city argued that she was not a municipal employee, its own Rule 30(b)(6) witness testified that she was an agent for the city and was hired by the police chief.

Pretext evidence. The court also found additional circumstantial evidence, albeit slight, showing the IA investigation into the domestic violence incident may have been pretextual. Not only did the detective in charge of the IA investigation misgender the officer in the memo notifying him of the investigation, but also when he retired from the SPD, he sent an email to the department with a quote from a pastor who had previously published anti-LGBTQ views. Further, the city did not wait for the results of the internal investigation before terminating the officer. Indeed, instead of waiting to see if there were any sustained violations, the city fired him based on the findings in the social worker’s FFDE report.

The court further observed that two of the officer’s proposed comparators were also subjected to IA investigations due to their conduct during a domestic violence incident but were not fired. This was sufficient to permit the conclusions that three officers were subjected to IA investigations over their handling of a domestic violence incident; each had sustained violations against them for mishandling a domestic violence incident; and both of the non-transgender men were treated more favorably than the officer in that both were neither subjected to a FFDE nor terminated after their IA investigations ended.

There was also evidence that the city refused the officer’s request for a second opinion to the FFDE despite its personnel rules and the collective bargaining agreement not prohibiting an officer from requesting a second opinion. Moreover, after his termination, he underwent a second FFDE with a licensed psychologist who found him fit to perform the duties of a law enforcement officer. Denying summary judgment against these claims, the court explained that “taken together, all these tiles of circumstantial evidence coalesce into a mosaic sufficient to create a triable issue of material fact on whether the City’s actions were discriminatory on the basis of gender.”

Retaliation. Turning to the officer’s Title VII and state-law retaliation claims, the court first found they were based solely on his August 2022 email complaining about misgendering. This, however, was too attenuated to show causation as the two adverse employment actions—the FFDE and termination—happened in April 2023.

Nor was there sufficient evidence to establish a convincing mosaic of intentional retaliation as there was no evidence any decisionmaker’s “desire to retaliate was the but-for cause” of his FFDE or termination or that the deputy city manager even knew about the August 2022 email. Further, the chief testified that he ordered the officer to undergo a FFDE due to the misconduct he saw when reviewing his BWC during the domestic violence incident and this misconduct could be “a superseding cause that undermines any causal connection between Plaintiff’s protected conduct and the materially adverse decision,” said the court, granting summary judgment against these claims.

Chief’s motion for summary judgment. Finally, the court addressed the chief’s motion for summary judgment on the officer’s Section 1983 Equal Protection Clause claims, which were asserted against him in his individual capacity. As to the claim based on the officer’s termination, the court found the chief could not be individually liable under Section 1983 because the deputy city manager, not the chief individually—terminated him. Nor did the chief recommend this termination.

Regarding his claim based on the FFDE, while the chief ordered the officer to undergo the evaluation, the court again found he failed to raise any direct evidence of discrimination, he could not make out a prima facie case of discrimination, and his proffered mosaic of circumstantial evidence related to the termination claims, not to the FFDE claims. Thus, the court granted summary judgment to the chief on these claims.

The case is No. 8:25-cv-00408-WFJ-SPF.

Judge: Jung, W.

Attorneys: Neil L. Henrichsen (Henrichsen Law Group) for Eli Schanley. Amy Kathleen Recla (Jackson Lewis) for City of Sarasota.

Companies: City of Sarasota, Florida

Cases: SexDiscrimination Discrimination PublicEmployees Discharge Retaliation FloridaNews GCNNews